EvidenceMature

Much to my contempt, I have to admit that Briony’s piece of junk did have its uses. The car drove slower than a grandma would walk on the streets, and though it did get on my nerves quite a lot I decided to give Briony her moments of delight. She used her delight to aggravate me which was something I didn't like at all.

"If we'd taken your car, it would have been so obvious that we're there as part of an SIS mission," she explained, a fact that she'd been emphasizing on the past thirty minutes. I swear, the car was going at a snail's pace.

"I know Briony. Your car is really effective. I give in, alright?" I said back patiently, trying not to let the irritation leak into my voice. She gave me a smug grin, probably the thousandth I'd received from her since we got in this car. I rolled my eyes at her and looked out the window, secretly relieved with the silence that took over between us. When Boss spoke with me through the phone, by his tone of voice I could tell this mission meant a lot to the SIS. Most of the ones I'd been assigned to had been easy and accomplishable. This one however is definitely not one to be taken lightly. Boss had warned me that this gang had been messing around with the SIS for a long enough time. If Briony and I screwed this up, he would be more than disappointed.

The car came to a shuddering stop as Briony pulled up in front of the bank entrance. "You know, if you're going to keep this car a little longer, you might want to maintain it well. By the looks of it, it won't last long." She ignored me and got out the car. We walked together towards the entrance of the bank and before we crossed the threshold, I whispered to her, "Use it if you need to." I didn't need to say much more as I knew Briony would understand what I meant.

By first looks, no one would have thought a bank robbery would have occurred here. Everything was normal, no helter-skelter. The glass panes were intact, walls still bright and shiny with no marks that would come of gun shots. The bank robbery had been as inconspicuous as Briony's car. The only signs of alarm were from the looks on the employees' faces as they walked around in a hurry.

A tall man with a balding head approached me and Briony, a stern look on his face. "I'm sorry Ma'am but the bank shall be closed for the rest of the day. We're having a bit of a predicament and it would be best if you leave right now."

"I'm sorry Sir but I have to withdraw some money. It's an emergency."

"I understand but at the moment, we're occupied."

Briony answered back, "I'd been notified of some strange activity in my savings account and I came here to discuss it with you."

At this, the man took some interest and muttered, "Actually, do come with me."

Briony gave me a wink before walking off with the man towards some room. I stood there, a little dumbfounded as to how 'strange activities in her savings account' possibly helped her with tricking that man. But I didn't spend too much time thinking on that as I quickly hurried towards one of the heavily guarded vaults, the one I'm pretty sure must have been broken into. I passed unnoticed as most of the staff who were too busy clicking away at their computers and conversing with each other about the robbery.

Entering the room, my guesses were right as I was met by the sight of many cabinets. As I browsed through them, nothing was inside each of them just as I had suspected. So the gang had taken everything they'd needed. Sighing in frustration, I looked around the room and saw a single gun lying on the floor. It could be of some use for the forensics team as they could gather fingerprints. Now, how exactly was I going to pick it up without getting my own onto the gun? Just as the thought entered my mind, Briony came walking into the vault.

"Did you find anything?"

"A gun. We could give it to the forensics team but I don't know how to -"

"I'll do it." Briony reached into her handbag and took out a white glove.

"Handy," I muttered and she grinned, placing the gun into a Ziploc bag.

"Is there anything else you found or is that it?"

"That's it."

"We should get going then. Besides, James is waiting out front. We could give it to him."

I nodded and followed her out the vault, giving it a quick glance around to see if I'd missed anything. The bald man who Briony had been talking to gave her a stiff nod as we left. We were then met by James who gave us a grin. "So, how'd it go?"

"Meh."

Briony lifted her eyebrows at me. "Get serious Maximus. We found a piece of evidence James. Here." She handed the bag to him and he smiled. "Great, this might just be useful." He gave us a salute before heading off, entering his own car and speeding away. I gave her a reproving look when she said, "Let's go," and started heading towards her car. No way.

"Max, I'm not going to argue with you again. Besides, I bet you have a few things to discuss with me."

She was right and with a sigh, I followed her. After getting into the very uncomfortable passenger seat, I started to clear my doubts. "So, that thing about the strange activity on your account, what was that about?"

"If you look through the files Boss gave us, it mentioned something about how the gang always managed to hack their way into some of the bank accounts of customers before they did the actual robbery. Possibly done to gather information. So I just used the opportunity to distract the Bank Manager so you could scavenge."

"Quick thinking," I muttered, looking out the window.

"Thanks. Also, somehow the gang always manages to leave a piece of evidence whenever they do a robbery. Last time it was a knife, and now a gun. It just doesn't fit." Her expression grew tense and frustration leaked into her voice as she spoke.

"A sell-out possibly?" I asked, considering the option and she did too for awhile before shaking her head.

"In that case, I'm pretty sure the person would leave much more than just a weapon for us."

We drove in silence for the rest of the ride, going over our own theories and reasoning. Nevertheless, it got us nowhere.

Select a previous page...

Note: Keep in mind that the From: field of the email message sent by this form will contain your email address,
and will therefore be available to the recipient. If you're not comfortable with this, please
close this window.